The present invention relates to food products and to their methods of preparation. In particular, the present invention relates to cereal products especially ready-to-eat cereals and/or cooked grain based snacks composed of thin laminated layers with interstitial voids that create a pastry-like texture, and to their methods of preparation.
Ready-to-eat (xe2x80x9cR-T-Exe2x80x9d) cereals, often called breakfast cereals, are popular food items. Such food products are dried food products generally prepared from pieces fabricated from cooked cereal doughs. Snack food products prepared from cooked cereal doughs can be similar although are generally pieces of larger size often dried by deep fat frying, e.g., corn chips.
R-T-E cereals have been prepared in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, compositions, textures, flavors and the like. Efforts continue in the art to develop R-T-E cereals having new shapes or structures, textures or eating sensations and visual appeal or appearance.
The present invention is directed towards R-T-E cereals and grain based snack products of novel structure, eating sensation, and appearance as well as to practical methods for their large scale or commercial manufacture. In particular, the present invention is directed towards R-T-E cereal pieces characterized by a highly laminated structure comprising a multiplicity of generally horizontally aligned thin parallel layers with interstitial voids.
R-T-E cereals of more than one layer are known. Products comprising two or three layers are particularly well known. However, products having more than three layers are less well known due to manufacturing difficulties in fabrication and drying of the intermediate layers. For these and other reasons, such products are generally fabricated from multiple layers of open nets or weaves. In particular, biscuits comprising multiple layers of webs or filaments are popular cereals. Often such products include an intermediate fruit paste layer and/or a topical sugar coating layer often on one or both major faces.
Biscuits of compressed flakes from individual cooked grain berries are also known, with the flakes randomly compressed into a molded biscuit. However, the flakes are randomly oriented not generally horizontally aligned. Also, the flakes are much smaller averaging less than 40 mm2. Such biscuits can include added particulates such as fruit and nuts compressed with the flakes, and can be topically coated.
Multicolored two-ply R-T-E cereals are also known (see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,940,593, issued Jul. 10, 1990 to D. K. Duffy entitled xe2x80x9cMulticolored R-T-E Cereal and Method of Preparationxe2x80x9d) that rely upon using a highly puffable cereal dough such as rice flour. Puffed three ply cereals are also known (see for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,890 entitled xe2x80x9cMulti-layered Puffed R-T-E Cereal and High Intensity Microwave method of Productionxe2x80x9d issued Sep. 24, 1996 to Brown et al. which is incorporated herein by reference). The products and methods of preparation in the ""890 patent relied upon employment of high intensity microwave puffing which has not proven to be commercially practical.
Also known are biscuits comprising exterior layers fabricated from cooked cereals or cook cereal doughs and optionally containing a filling of fruit or a confectionery composition.
The present invention provides a novel approach to the formation of laminated multilayered cereal pieces of surprisingly appealing pastry-like texture. The present invention resides importantly in forming a multiplicity of unusually thin layers combined to form a bed or mass which upon controlled compression to include interstitial voids, which when formed into pieces and dried or toasted, create this unique texture. The present invention includes a novel and useful process by which such novel R-T-E cereal pieces can be realized.
Disclosed are multi-layered, cereal pieces. The cereal pieces comprise at least four and up to about 20 discrete layers each 100-500 micrometers (xe2x80x9cxcexcmxe2x80x9d) thick and each fabricated from cooked cereal dough. The cereal pieces have a bulk density ranging from about 0.06 to 0.4 g/cc, and each weigh about 0.2-10 g. The cereal pieces are essentially characterized by a laminate structure of a multiplicity of intermediate cereal dough flakes or layers each having a finished volume the same as its initial volume. The pieces include interstitial voids intermediate the layers ranging from about 0.1 to 4 mm in thickness and averaging about 0.8 mm. The cereal pieces preferably include a topical coating.
In its method aspect, the present invention resides in comprising the steps of: providing a compressed laminated cereal dough bed or mass having a multiplicity of distinct horizontally extending parallel thin layers each fabricated from a cooked cereal dough; forming individual pieces from the laminated sheet, drying the pieces to 2% to 6% moisture, and optionally applying a topical coating.